Big River Milk Announces Campaign to Return Milk to Glass Bottles

Moving milk to glass and ditch the plastic.

Press Release-
updated: Nov 5, 2018

GRAFTON, Australia,
November 5, 2018 (Newswire.com) -
​Remember the clink of milk bottles on the doorstep, peeling back the lid on a fresh bottle of milk and being the first to experience the creamy goodness inside? Big River Milk does. Yet somehow the magic of real milk in real glass has mostly been forgotten, along with the planet, as the milk industry produced billions of disposable plastic bottles.

Big River Milk is starting a movement to right the wrong, ditch the plastic and return milk to glass, delivered fresh to the door every day in rewashable and refillable glass bottles.

“We were really hit by the Australian ABC show ‘War on Waste’. It made us start to think about plastic in the supply chain and how can we get rid of it,” said Peter Watt of Big River Milk. “We use around 500,000 bottles a year, and we’re only a small producer. It’s mind-boggling to think how much plastic goes into the system.”

We were really hit by the Australian ABC show 'War on Waste'. It made us start to think about plastic in the supply chain and how can we get rid of it. We use around 500,000 bottles a year, and we're only a small producer. It's mind-boggling to think how much plastic goes into the system.

Peter Watt

Director

Big River Milk has quickly worked out that it isn’t going to be easy, and it’s not going to be cheap. “The move away from plastic is worthwhile, but we really didn’t fathom just how many changes that we would have to make to our systems. From the bottle cleaning machines, right through to upgrading the weight rating of the trucks that deliver our milk – it’s all got to change!”

While this is returning to old-school milk delivery, Big River is turning to modern day activism to help achieve their goal. Peter Watt while speaking on his promotional video on Vimeo stated, “We worked out that we need a little over $400,000 to fund the change-over. We have access to about half of that, for the rest we are hoping to pre-sell milk home delivery subscriptions on our website and we are also turning to crowdfunding site Indiegogo to get like-minded people to help us raise the funds. In return we’ve come up with a series of packages from t-shirts right through to naming rights for our cows,” Peter says. “It’s just our way of getting people that we can’t supply our milk to to join our movement back to old-fashioned milk, in glass, the way it should be.”

It has only been three days, but the engagement that Big River Milk has been getting through their social media channels has been phenomenal. “It’s obviously struck a nerve,” exclaims Peter. “We are getting hundreds of supportive comments in our posts, it looks like glass is something people feel strongly about.’’

The next step is getting people to help fund the process to eradicate plastic from the supply chain for Big River Milk. People between Gold Coast and Port Macquarie can purchase a milk subscription on bigrivermilk.com.au, but supporters from around the world can search for the campaign on Indiegogo and join the movement by purchasing a piece of Big River Milk MooOvement merchandise or donate to the cause to help reach the target and deliver milk in glass bottles sooner.

To learn more about Big River Milk, our Indiegogo crowdfunding venture or our move to glass bottles: